The Legacy

The Legacy by Rosemary Laurey My great grandmother's wrinkled skin, hands like bird's claws, and dowager's hump, scared my younger cousins, and even a few of the older ones. But Mimi fascinated me from the day. Mother and I went to live with her after, my father died. I was nine, an odd, lonely child, grieving for my adored but distant father, and torn away from my familiar life in London. I was never sure exactly why we moved. From overheard phone calls, I knew we had no money, our flat was rented, and my father left no insurance. Mother was a trained nurse and Great-grandmother needed a caregiver, but there were jobs for nurses all over London, and mother was less of a countrywoman than I was. But whatever her reasons, I was told to stop moping and pack up my books and clothes. We arrived in Devon in drizzling, February dusk. While Mother parked the car, I slipped out, opened the wrought iron gate, and stared for a moment at the pink-stuccoed house, before walking up the gravel path to the wide front door. It opened before I reached up for the brass knocker. "You've come then, have you, my love?" a tall, broad-shouldered woman asked. "I'm Julia Harker," I replied. "Mummy's parking the car." And muttering about mud and ditches. "I'm Brigit. I'll give your mother a hand. You go in and talk to Mrs. Fellows." I crossed the tiled hallway and paused in the threshold, painfully aware of the expanse of red turkey carpet and my muddy shoes. "Is that you, child?" The voice came from a wingback chair by the open fire. "Yes, I'm Julia." "Come close. I don't have eyes in the back of my head." I hesitated on the edge of the thick, and even to a child's eyes, expensive carpet. "My shoes are dirty." "Drat your shoes! I want to see what you look like!" Taking that a permission to leave footprints, I stepped into the light of the fire, to the oldest woman I'd ever known. She was dressed in black, with an old-fashioned cap covering her white hair, and a lace jabot at her throat. She held out a wrinkled hand, the skin thin and translucent like tracing-paper. Her face was crisscrossed with wrinkles, but her eyes were sharp and glimmered in the firelight, "So you're Neville's daughter?" I nodded, the mention of my father bringing a lump to my throat. "I'm so pleased you and your mother came. I like company, and Brigit needs the help." "I'll help too."

"Yes, I expect you will." Her smile wrinkled her eyes even more. "Now give me a kiss," I brushed my lips on the old cheek and found it surprisingly soft, "and pour me another cup of tea—a dash of milk and one sugar cube—and get yourself one. You must be cold from the journey." While mother and Brigit sloshed through the mud and rain, I sat on a leather dumpty by the fire, and fell in love with my great-grandmother. In the next couple of days, I understood why we'd been invited. Brigit needed to move out and help her sister care for their own aged father. So mother was there to take care of Great-grandmother during the nights and evenings, and in return she gave us the entire upstairs. The house seemed vast after a flat in Islington. Built in the early nineteenth-century by a retiring sea captain who'd made a small fortune out of slaves and rum, his descendants had, I imagine, gladly sold it to Greatgrandmother and her long-dead Jonathan. To the late Victorians, the tall ogee windows and perfectly proportioned rooms must have seemed dire and old-fashioned. But when, I discovered Georgette Heyer, I imagined Georgina Taverner or Henrietta Silverdale, walking the gravel paths, or reading by the window in the morning room. But the escape of Georgette Heyer lay ahead of me. After the first week, Mimi asked me how I liked school. I debated lying, but her bright eyes demanded truth. "No one likes me. They think I talk posh, and make fun of me when I know the answers." Mother had brushed aside my anxieties. Mimi didn't. She listened while I moaned, and after sitting quietly for a few minutes asked. "What would you like me to do?" "It'll be alright." Besides, what could a grown up do about the harsh world of childhood? "Your birthday's in a few weeks. Would you like a party and invite some of the girls over to tea? The whole village is curious about my house." I shook my head. "No, thank you. If all they care about is the house, I don't want them as friends." Mimi made no effort to cajole me out of my slump. I sat near her, watching the flames, listening to the logs splutter in the grate, and knowing I should go upstairs and do my homework. "If you don't want your own birthday party, would you help plan mine?" "Yours?" "In May I will be a hundred. I'm inviting all my grandchildren and great grandchildren for my centenary. I can't get out and about without bothering your mother or Brigit, but you can ride the bus into Exeter for me, and if your mother agrees, we can get you a bicycle." Mine was left behind when we moved, a brand new one was something to look forward to. "I'll help. I can post the invitations, and run errands." Mimi nodded. "Good! Now, if you don't want a birthday party, would you like a birthday treat?" I knew exactly what I wanted, but after Brigit's earlier prohibition, diplomacy was called for. "I'm not sure it's allowed, Brigit didn't want me to go there, but I'd like to be able to explore the attic."

"You went up after Brigit forbade you?" "No!" I shook my head. "She asked me to help bring down a box, but when I asked to explore, she said they were old things and not to be poked at." "So, I have to come up with a reason so Brigit won't think you came to me behind her back." Mimi understood. "While I think about it, how about you make some toast to go with my tea." I reached for the toasting fork, speared a slice of brown bread on the tines, and settled on the hearthrug in front of the glowing embers, trusting Mimi completely. "Child," she said as she chewed her toast, "I need you to look for a box upstairs in the attic. I don't want to bother your mother or Brigit, but if you'd find it for me... It's leather-covered, as big as a medium-sized suitcase but deeper. It contains some old papers I need." I had a carte blanche. The attic was a fascinating wonderland, with a few scares. The coffin in one corner for a start. I didn't recognise it until I looked under the yellowed dust sheet. At my father's funeral—a cremation in North London—I'd never been within touching distance of his light oak coffin. Fascinated, I ran my fingers over the polished mahogany, and finding the lid loose, shifted it a few inches and peered inside. It was lined with red, quilted satin, the padding having gone lumpy over the years. A bit unnerved, I heaved the lid back, and pulled the dust sheet into place. There was plenty less scary than an empty coffin: trunks and boxes of old clothes, cartons of books—the promising ones I put those aside to read. Disused furniture in a stack at one end. I left alone, not wanting to get buried under a heap of rickety bentwood chairs, or tables with broken legs. The rocking cradle intrigued me. It was too old to have been my father's but perhaps my grandfather, Quincey, slept there. All very fascinating, but I couldn't stop glancing towards the now-shrouded coffin. Who did it belong to? Or rather, who didn't it belong to? It obviously had never been used. But I still had Mimi's leather box to find, I finally unearthed it in a corner, under a carton filled with old jigsaws and dusty games. I put them aside with the books, and pulled out the leather box. It was heavier than it looked, and locked, but it had to be the one. Brigit helped me haul it down, muttering and grumbling about dust and cobwebs and insisting on vacuuming it off. The puzzles and books, she pushed aside, but didn't prohibit. "You'd best ask Mrs. Fellows about them, my love," she said as she hefted the leather box down the stairs. To get on her good side, I put away the vacuum before heading to Mimi's room. "Where's the child?" I pushed open the door. "Here!" "Thank you for finding it, Julia. It's exactly what I wanted, now sit down by me and tell me what else you found." I mentioned the coffin. "It belongs to an old friend. I promised to keep it safe for him." I'd never imagined old people keep each other's coffins. Grownups were unpredictable Brigit was muttering and rummaging in the desk drawers. "I doubt it's here." "Look in the little black lacquer box marked 'collar studs'." I had no idea what collar studs were, but Brigit found the box, and the key was there on a ring with several

others. The opened box proved as fascinating as I hoped. Mimi and I spent a wet March afternoon, leafing through old photo albums. "That's Jonathan, my first husband," Mimi said pointing to a stiff-looking young man with side whiskers. "He had the same surname as you, and was a solicitor." "Watkins, Harker, Jordan, and Harker?" I remembered the name of the solicitors who'd handled my father's estate. Mimi nodded. "They still handle all the family affairs. The second Harker was my first son Quincey, your grandfather. Tobias Jordan was Jonathan's junior partner, he took over when Jonathan died." Other pictures showed a much younger Mimi and five somber-faced children, dressed in black , Mimi and another man—her second husband—a baby and a toddler and a cluster of older children. "How many times were you married Mimi?" "Three times and out-lived them all. We last longer than men." Maybe that explained why my father died. "Did any of them have cancer?" "No, but my daughter Amelia did, and young Peter's wife. People die from many things, Julia, but no one goes before their time. Every life is complete. Some are just much shorter than others." I hadn't the heart to say, that didn't seem fair. Why had my father died at thirty-eight, while she lived to nearly a hundred? We spend all evening, turning over dusty pages and old photographs, as I learned about Mimi's sprawling family—my relations. The younger Jonathan's sons who'd gone to Australia and sent photos of their children on the beach at Christmas, Quincey's younger brother, Peter, and his family in India: four pale faced-children wearing pith helmets, my father as a fat little toddler seated on a rocking horse, and his sister, my aunt Monica, holding the reins. Mimi had outlived three husbands, all eight children, and three of her grand children. My great-grandmother approached immortal. The bottom of the box held brittle envelopes of yellowed newspaper clippings, and notebooks with marbled covers. "My diaries," Mimi explained. "When you're older, perhaps you may read them. You like stories, Julia, and there's a strange one in there." I wanted to read them right there and then. A few days later, while Mimi napped in her rocking chairs, I took one of the old notebooks and leafed through it. The faded-to-brown ink told nothing of more interest that train journeys and a boat trip. Angela Brazil books made better reading. The diaries went back under the photo albums, the bundles of letters tied together with faded ribbon, and yellowed envelopes with brittle locks of hair from long-dead babies. Diaries were soon forgotten in the preparations for the party. Phone calls were booked to Australia, New Zealand and California, as Grandmother summoned far-flung descendants for her centenary. Chickens were ordered at Brigit's brother's poultry farm, hams and pies from a farm in North Devon, prawns and crabs from Torbay, and early strawberries and raspberries were to be flown in from The Channel Islands. We sent to Exeter for wine and champagne, and a baker in Newton Abbot for a birthday cake and pasties. In early May, the carpets were taken up and sent to Plymouth for cleaning, and Brigit's sister-in-law was cooped to help sort china, glasses and table linen. Chipped, cracked and worn items were replaced, and days spent polishing silver and laundering table linen that had moulderd in drawers and linen cupboards since before the war.

"A lot of fuss and expense if you ask me," Brigit complained as she counted out pastry forks and sherry glasses. "It's not every day someone sees a hundred," her sister-in-law, a plump, easy-going woman, pointed out. "She might as well spend it as have them fight over it when she's gone." The thought of Mimi dying shocked me quiet for the rest of the day. I wanted her to be immortal. I couldn't anyone else dying. The loss of my father still smarted. But in the whirlwind of preparations, I had little time to brood. I addressed envelopes, rode my new bicycle to the village to buy sheets of stamps, and back again with my satchel packed with engraved invitations in cream vellum envelopes. One weekend, Mimi ordered a car and took mother and me to a dressmaker's shop facing the cathedral green. We spent the afternoon looking at bolts of cloth. By the time we left, Mimi had ordered us all new clothes, not just party dresses, but jackets and spare outfits for the rest of the gala weekend. The occasion came end of my half term—a week spent sorting and cleaning and meeting relatives at the station and taking them by taxi to the hotel where Mimi reserved rooms. The spare bedrooms in the house being reserved for the favoured guests. Friday night Brigit and her sister-in-law laid on a cold supper. Some of the guests I remembered from my father's funeral. Others were only names on Christmas cards: Aunt Mildred and Uncle Tom from California, bringing two cases of wine and moaning at length about the customs duties. Suntanned Uncle Mark from Australia who arrived with a case of glace apricots, I sampled when no one was looking. And other children, who seemed awed that I actually lived here, a resident great-granddaughter. I was reflected in Mimi's the limelight, and reveled in the attention. The next day, more people arrived. A string quartet from the University played Gilbert and Sullivan. Relatives by the score milled around long tables with platters of poached salmon, chicken in aspic, boiled pink prawns, meringues, strawberries, and clotted cream by the bucketful. There was chatter and gossip, and fresh rounds of hugs and kisses as I met new aunts and cousins. Just before the double-tiered cake was to be cut, and the caterers were passing around glasses of champagne, the last guest arrived: a tall, foreignlooking, dark-haired man. "It's that Roman chap," one of the great-uncles muttered. "I thought he'd be dead by now. Haven't seen him since Robert's funeral." Robert, I knew, was Mimi's third husband. I tried not to stare at the man, whom Uncle Simon thought was dead, but looked younger than half the people around. As if aware of the interest he incurred, but obviously not caring, (How I wished I could act that way in the playground) the man closed the gate, walked between clusters of people watching over their champagne glasses, to where Mimi sat in state in her rocking chair. "Vlad!" Her eyes glittered with delight as she held out both hands. "I'm so glad you came!" "Mina, how could I stay away? It won't be long now." "I'll take my own good time," she replied with a chuckle. "You are staying?" "If I may." "Of course!" This had to be the mysterious visitor, Mimi had insisted we kept the best spare room for.

"My great-granddaughter, Julia," Mimi said, calling me over after the interest in the new arrival gave way to champagne and toasts and cake, "Quincey's granddaughter. Child, this is my oldest friend, Vlad Roman." "How do you do, Mr. Roman." "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Harker," he replied, kissing my offered hand. "You must be a great joy and boon to my dear Mina." I'd only ever seen hands kissed in films, and now it had happened to me. Incredible! "I help her. I make her toast at tea time." It wasn't the brilliant, witty answer I want to give but... "You like living in Devon?" I couldn't lie to those intense, dark eyes. "I don't like school much, because I don't fit in. But I love being here with Mimi." He nodded as if understanding completely. "People of presence seldom fit in the mundane mortal world." I wasn't sure what he meant, but it sounded lovely. I wanted to be a 'person of presence', just like Mimi and this strange but fascinating man. "It was nice meeting you, Mr. Roman, but I'd better go, Aunt Mildred wanted me to get her some lemonade." "It was an honour," he replied with a little bow, that I wished the whole class had seen. "An intelligent girl," I overheard him say later that evening, after everyone had left and the caterers were loading their vans. "Yes," Mimi replied, "she is. I'm thinking of leaving her my diaries when I go." "Is that wise? You intended to destroy them." "I changed my mind. I believe Julia will understand." Not long after, my mother sent me up to bed. I lay awake, listening to the grown ups come upstairs. Aunt Mildred and Uncle Tom had the room over the dining room. Uncle Mark was in the pink room. Mr. Roman had the big room at the end with the roses on the wallpaper. Worn out from the excitement, I slept soundly, but dreamt I heard footsteps going up into the attic. In the morning, Mimi looked tired—hardly surprising at her age—but her eyes glowed with excitement. After breakfast, the house visitors left. I helped carry suitcases down to the station for the London trains. On my return, Mr. Roman, who'd slept through breakfast, was talking to Mimi in her drawing room, with the curtains pulled over the open French windows. "I'm tired, child. Leave them closed," Mimi said. I backed out, leaving Great-grandmother and her old friend together. Staying seemed like an intrusion. Monday morning meant back to school. Mr. Roman had gone home, the marquee was dismantled, and all that remained of the party, was a trampled lawn and a pantry of leftovers. I had shrimp sandwiches and chocolate éclairs in my lunch for a week. Life settled back to normal. Grandmother seemed to tire more easily but she rallied in August, with the preparations to send me to boarding school—something I dreaded, but enjoyed from the very beginning.

Two years later, Mimi died, leaving a trust to cover my education, and a legacy when I was twenty-five. Mother received a comfortable income for life, and Brigit a pension. The beautiful house was sold, and legacies left to Mimi's numerous offspring. My great-grandmother had been a wealthy woman. I went home for the funeral, wishing I'd seen Mimi before she died. "It was an easy going," Brigit told me, over tea in the kitchen. "Your mother went in that morning with a cup of tea, and found her gone. Smiling she was." I knew should be glad Mimi hadn't suffered, but her loss shattered me. "I wish I'd been here." "I know you do, my love, but she was happy right to the end. Why, just two days before, that foreign friend of hers came to visit, and they talked into the night. Tired her out, but at a hundred and three, what do you expect? My legs ache and I'm only sixty-five!" Brigit took a sip of tea. "If you want to say goodbye, she's in the Chapel of Rest. Your mother thought you shouldn't go, on account it might bring back memories of your father, but I went to tell her good bye. Seemed only proper really, I'd worked for her for thirty years." Brigit was right. I took the bus into Exeter and walked down to the undertakers near St. Thomas. Mimi lay in her open coffin—serene, smiling, and unwrinkled. Her skin even had a youthful bloom. Mother was right, it was upsetting. I boohooed and sniffed into my handkerchief, but Brigit was right too, it was only proper to say goodbye to the great-grandmother who'd given love and understanding to a grieving child. I didn't stay long, Mother and Brigit needed help with the funeral tea for tomorrow. Only there wasn't a funeral. Before breakfast, we had a frantic phone call. Mimi's body had disappeared. Police asked questions. The assembled aunts, uncles, and cousins had even more. "Preposterous! How can you lose a corpse?" "Medical students from the university?" "In this day and age? You're in the wrong century!" We postponed the funeral a day, but when they never found Mimi, we held a memorial service. After more shocked whispers and demands that the police find her, everyone left, and I got ready to return to school. "You know, Mum," I said as we waited on the station for my train. "It's horrid someone stole Mimi. I just hate to think of her dumped somewhere." "It's not over," Mother said. "I'm going to kick up a stink until they find her. How can you mislay a dead body?" There was a big stink: headlines in the Express and Echo, and a police investigation. The ensuing publicity put the undertaker out of business, but Mimi never turned up. After accepting their legacies, the family learned to live with the shock and indignation. When I turned twenty-five, I received my inheritance: a quarter of a million in sterling, and a leather-bound chest Mimi had deposited with the offices of Watkins, Harker, Jordan and Harker, a few months before her death.

She also left a letter. "My dearest Julia, The money is to set you up in life, use it wisely, but be frivolous at times, too.. Keep the photos for your own children, and pass on the stories I told you. My diaries, and the story in them, are yours. I would that at least one other person knows all that happened." I had no idea what she meant. I put the box and its contents in a closet. One day when I had time, I'd sit down and read her story.

© 2003 Rosemary Laurey—all rights reserved